Previews

Scarface: The World Is Yours

It seems that part of that has been through looking at the mistakes that other sandbox titles have made. There are no load times going in and out of buildings, a huge relief when playing any sandbox title. Tony will also be able to carry at least 250 different conversations on the street with people. The team has been devising missions and trying them out. Depending on the rating score, they then decide whether it's worth implementing or not. That means that the likelihood of some unwieldy RC vehicle missions are fairly unlikely. Rather than going somewhere for side missions, Tony picks up a cell phone that's almost as big as him (remember, it is 1983 after all) and goes for broke. Well, maybe "broke" isn't the right term considering that in addition to calling up missions on the fly, he can also call up a car with a driver to take him to the mission. If that's not enough, the driver will also jump out to Tony's aid should he get caught in a firefight.

It's never just about gameplay with sandbox titles either. Over the years, the one-upsmanship in the realm of soundtracks has always been one that can get heated. While the Radical team wasn't at a point at which they could reveal who would be licensed for the soundtrack, we do know that they will give players the option to create a "mixtape." Rather than waiting for a track to come up on the radio a la GTA, the custom playlist will allow Tony to skip ahead to his custom selections. Suffice it to say, the music will reflect the time period of the game, and bits and pieces of Giorgio Moroder's soundtrack will also come into play throughout the game.

Having said all of that, we were pleasantly surprised when the developers put a controller in our hands and let us run amok in the first level of the game, which is the grand finale of the film. All of the anarchy of the mansion shootout is captured in its bloodlust-filled detail. The targeting system feels much better than most third-person action games, let alone sandbox games, which have notoriously had some mediocre targeting to them. It appears that Tony will be able to shoot oncomers with a system that has both simple "flick stick" targeting (similar to what was seen in GUN) and the ability to use precision to shoot. It was a conscious decision made to reward both hardcore gamers, who will get more rewards for gory headshots and sterilizing "nut" shots, and the average gamer, who might just want to engage in a kill-crazy rampage. Right now, it feels easy to pick up and play and is quite fun. Also, Tony's notoriously profane mouth gets a nice workout throughout the game, with a veritable cascade of unprintable phrases being uttered at the speed that he fires off semi-automatic shots.

We haven't had a chance to try out the driving mechanic or anything else in Scarface's virtual Miami, but if the shooting system is any indication of how everything else is being developed, the title looks like it will play better than anyone could have expected that it would around last year's E3. The team is doing a nice job of immersing players into Tony's depraved world of booze, broads, and bullets, although the visuals could still use a little more polish. With somewhere between four and five months though, the graphics should get a better once-over before it hits the streets. We'll keep readers posted as the progress comes along on this title.